大腦如何讓我們逃避人終有一死的真相

警告：這是一篇關於死亡的文章！你現在也許想要點擊關閉鍵退出。

That’s because, researchers say, our brains do their best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise. A study found that the brain shields us from existential fear by categorizing death as an unfortunate event that only befalls other people.
研究人員說，這是因爲，我們的大腦竭盡全力不讓我們老去想那不可避免的死亡。一項研究發現，大腦將死亡歸類爲一個只會降臨於他人的不幸事件，藉此使我們逃避關於生死話題的恐懼。

“The brain does not accept that death is related to us,” said Yair Dor-Ziderman, at Bar Ilan University in Israel. “We have this primal mechanism that means when the brain gets information that links self to death, something tells us it’s not reliable, so we shouldn’t believe it.”
以色列巴爾伊蘭大學的亞伊爾·多爾-齊德曼說：“大腦不承認死亡與我們有關。我們有這種原始機制，這意味着當大腦收到將自我與死亡聯繫起來的信息時，某個聲音就告訴我們，它不可靠，因此我們不應該相信它。”

Being shielded from thoughts of our future death could be crucial for us to live in the present. The protection may switch on in early life as our minds develop and we realize death comes to us all.
屏蔽掉未來終有一死的想法對我們活在當下至關重要。這種保護可能在我們生命的早期就開啓了，隨着心智發育，我們漸漸認識到人人都終有一死。

“The moment you have this ability to look into your own future, you realize that at some point you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Dor-Ziderman. “That goes against the grain of our whole biology, which is helping us to stay alive.”
多爾-齊德曼說：“一旦你有了這種展望自己未來的能力，你就意識到，你到某一時刻會死，而你對此無能爲力。這違背了幫助我們活下去的整個生物學原理。”

To investigate how the brain handles thoughts of death, Dor-Ziderman and colleagues developed a test that involved producing signals of surprise in the brain.
爲了研究大腦如何應對關於死亡的思考，多爾-齊德曼及其同事設計了一項關於大腦產生驚訝信號的測試。

They asked volunteers to watch faces flash up on a screen while their brain activity was monitored. The person’s own face or that of a stranger flashed up on screen several times, followed by a different face. On seeing the final face, the brain flickered with surprise because the image clashed with what it had predicted.
他們要求志願者觀看在屏幕上閃現的面孔，同時對其大腦活動進行監測。志願者本人的面孔或一個陌生人的面孔在屏幕上閃現數次，隨後是一張不同的面孔。當看到最後一張面孔時，大腦閃現出驚訝，因爲圖像與它的預測相沖突。

Various words appeared above the faces on screen. Half of the time these were death-related words such as “funeral” or “burial”. The scientists found that if a person’s own face flashed up next to deathly words, their brain shut down its prediction system. It refused to link the self with death and no surprise signals were recorded.
屏幕上的面孔上方配有各種單詞，一半與死亡有關，比如“葬禮”或“埋葬”。科學家發現，如果一個人自己的面孔配上與死亡相關的字眼閃現，他們的大腦就會關閉預測系統，拒絕將自我與死亡聯繫起來，不發出驚訝信號。

Avi Goldstein, a senior author on the paper, said: “This suggests that we shield ourselves from existential threats, or consciously thinking about the idea that we are going to die, by shutting down predictions about the self, or categorizing the information as being about other people rather than ourselves.”
論文第一作者阿維·戈德斯坦說：“這表明，我們通過停止做出關於自我的預測或把死亡信息歸類爲事關他人而非我們自己，以此屏蔽死亡威脅，或者說，免於有意識地思考我們終會死亡的念頭。”

Dor-Ziderman added: “We cannot rationally deny that we will die, but we think of it more as something that happens to other people.”
多爾-齊德曼還說：“我們在理智上無法否認我們會死亡，但我們更多地把它看作發生在他人身上的事。”

In the not-so-distant past, Zor-Diderman pointed out, our brain’s defences against thoughts of death were balanced out by the reality of death around us. Today, he believes, society is more death-phobic, with sick people confined to hospitals and elderly people to care homes. As a result, he suspects, people know far less about the end of life and perhaps come to fear it more.
多爾-齊德曼指出，在不太遙遠的過去，我們大腦對死亡思考的防禦被周圍有人死亡的現實抵消。他認爲，當今社會對死亡的恐懼更甚，病人被關進醫院，老人被送進養老院。他懷疑，人們對生命之終結的瞭解因此少了許多，也許結果更加害怕死亡。

Arnaud Wisman, a psychologist at the University of Kent, said people put up numerous defences to stave off thoughts of death. The young in particular may see it as a problem for other people, he said.
肯特大學的心理學家阿諾德·威斯曼說，人們想方設法抵禦對死亡的思考。他說，年輕人尤其可能會把死亡看成是別人的事。

His own work had found that in modern societies people embraced what he called the “escape treadmill”, where hard work, pub sessions, checking mobile phones and buying more stuff meant people were simply too busy to worry about death.
他的研究發現，在現代社會，人們欣然接受他所謂的“逃避性勞動”，即辛苦工作、酒吧聚會、查看手機和購買更多東西，忙得無暇擔心死亡。

“However, it is not a solution to the problem itself,” he said. “So we need to keep escaping.”
他說：“然而，這不是解決問題本身的辦法。所以我們需要不停地逃避。”